


A Funeral Song For One

by alexiel_neesan



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Clothing, Gen, funeral rites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a shirt that belonged to Laura in his bag. Derek couldn't fit into her shirts, hadn't been able to since he had turned eighteen, but she fit into his, and stole his shirts and sweaters regularly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Funeral Song For One

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: some of Derek's thoughts may be read as suicidal.

There was a shirt that belonged to Laura in his bag. Derek couldn't fit into her shirts, hadn't been able to since he had turned eighteen, but she fit into his, and stole his shirts and sweaters regularly. He went through his clothes fast, tearing, ripping them up or staining them beyond fixing, and only the ones she claimed, the ones that passed back and forth, had a chance to age.

There was a shirt that belonged to Laura, in his bag, and when he had found the clothes she had been wearing when—… when, she had been wearing the shirt she stole most often, the grey one with the fraying cuff and the hole at the hem, gone flannel-soft from too many washings. One sleeve had been ripped off, and the fabric was stained with dirt and blood and the scent of decay. He had buried it, with her other clothes, with her. It had been a sad-looking sending bundle. There should have been more, and a wake, and songs howled, and a proper passing of power— all he had been able to give her had been the barest bones of a funeral, drenched in anger and grief and the smell and the itch of wolfsbane rubbed into his hands. He didn't know the songs. He would kill her murderer, tear them apart, take revenge for her death and hope it would be enough to— he didn't believe in the afterlife, for himself. He wanted… a clean ending, a full-stop. But for Laura, he would believe, and he would avenge her, and he hoped it would be enough for her to join their family and chase the Moon in the Forever-Sky in peace. He had little doubts he would follow her soon after. There was no peace for lone werewolves. There would be no one to bury him. 

There was a shirt that belonged to Laura in his bag. He couldn't remember when he had grabbed it. Maybe it just had been a mix-up in the last load— he had been the one on laundry duty before she had split to come back here. He had grabbed clean clothes, the first he could find and cram in the bag that was now in the trunk and smelling of car and road, when she had left him the message that something was going on and she wanted him there. 

There was a shirt that belonged to Laura in his bag and it didn't smell like her when he buried his face in it. 

++

It took him a long time to find her car. He searched the impound lot first, in case it had been found and left there. Then the impound lots in the next towns. Then he had tried to walk back in her tracks, what little he knew where she had been, who she had talked to, finding new elements on the unknown alpha on the way. He only found it after everything had happened, after everything had gone down, after everything.

The car was barely visible from the road, and now that the Hale house was county property, there was barely anyone coming this way; most joggers, hikers and other guests of the woods took the other road, to the parking lot and the official entrance to the Beacon Hills Preserve. The windows on the left side had been smashed in, letting dampness and animals and …things have a go at her things. The roof looked muddy, like the car had rolled before resting down the road on its side against the trees there. There were claw marks on the rear bumper, scratches on the paint job, and the license plates weren't there. 

There was the taste of bile and rage in the back of his throat. 

He found… her usual bag of fast food in the front, some candy and cereal bars in the glove box, a knife, maps, a pack of bottles of imported water with only one open —and he could hear her voice saying "I can taste the difference, Derek. I am not drinking tap water." There was her bag, her pillow, her quilt, her things. There was a line of ants around the fast food. Nothing had been disturbed by human hands, nothing smelt. He found her laptop, her ipod, her phone charger but no phone. 

He took everything he could use. The quilt smelt like dampness, like undergrowth, like the woods and her. He spent the night wrapped in it. The fading scent was a poor replacement for her. He left an anonymous tip about the car. Two days later, it wasn't there anymore. 

++

It took a long time for Laura's body to be released to him. It took being accused of murder once again, nearly dying more than once, suddenly being the most wanted person in California, finding who the Alpha had been, killing his last living relative, the alpha power being passed down to him, being hung to Kate's whims again, finding Laura's car. After all of that, walking into the Sheriff's office, clearing his 'person of interest' status wasn't hard. Sheriff Stilinski was a good man. Derek could see some of Stiles in him —the humor, the impulsiveness mellowed by experience, something in the movements, the scent of what he could only translate as solidity. Unlike his son would have, he didn't ask about the too tight open sweater Derek was wearing in place of his leather jacket. The sweater didn't smell like her.

There was a lot of papers to sign. Derek took Sheriff Stilinski's apologies with a nod, a quiet "You were doing your job," a quick turning up of his lips at the grumble of ScottStilesdamnkids. The sheriff didn't ask were Derek was staying, just frowned slightly when he saw that the address Derek had provided was the old Hale house. He said it was county property. Derek replied it shouldn't be, he had someone look into it. Something had gone wrong, somewhere, because the land was still under Hale's name —under his name only, now— and taxes had been paid for years. The mistake would probably take years to be fixed, but he wanted it fixed. He could taste how much he wanted the house back. There would be no more hunters using this place as training ground, no more uncertainty about finding a place to retreat. He wished for the process to be faster, to be able to use the land he thought —dreamed about, feared, _knew_ — for what was to come, but it was out of his control.

Derek didn't squirm under Sheriff Stilinski's scrutiny, just thought about it. Solidity. He was… relieved Sheriff Stilinski didn't push for where he was currently living. He could have lied, if the Sheriff had asked, but he hadn't wanted to. 

It was a strange thing to contemplate. He almost asked Laura, in her closed casket, the sickly sweet smell of decay overlaid with chemicals and wood saturating his nose, but it wasn't Laura anymore in there. The funeral director had protested, at Derek rushing the funeral, at Derek placing a new sending bundle, still as sad as the first one that was now evidence on a shelf, in the coffin. He had protested politely every step of the way and Derek had ignored him stubbornly until the man gave up. Derek had killed Laura's murderer, given her a full bottle of wolfsbane oil, and a bag of fast food, her favorite shirt, her leather jacket, a robin's egg and odds and ends she had carried around as a sending bundle, but he still didn't knew the songs, still had no wake for her, still had no-one to acknowledge her passing and the passing of power. He would still follow her, but perhaps it would take longer, now.

He stayed until the grave was filled, a sprig of wolfsbane in his hand, burns in his palms. It would take root in the freshly turned soil, ultimately cover the stone, until only her name looked up to the sky. 

++

He remembered Laura's eyes, alight with relief when he started doing things on his own again. When he started listening to music that wasn't hers, when he picked food that she didn't like, when he walked down to where she worked in whichever city they were staying in at the time. The leaves in the trees were barely starting to grow, almost invisible from where he was laying on the ground, in the night. There was Dead Man's Bones, and Elbow, on her ipod; people buried in houses and lost loves and memories. He wondered— she had been his Alpha, she had been his sister, she had been his family, his protector, his guardian, she had taken care of him but who had taken care of her? Thinking back on it, it felt like nothing he had done had been enough. It didn't feel right that the last time he could remember telling her he loved her and missed her had been to a grave.

That was what his life came down to: a fresh grave, the car he basically lived in parked further away, hidden in the trees, two bags of clothes, technology he didn't need nor wanted, an idea —dreams, nightmares, unshakable knowledge— of what could happen in a close future that lead to three newly-bitten wolves and a kanima and deaths he was responsible for, Scott and Stiles and Allison as constant variables, a burned house that had been taken over by the people who wanted him dead, a territory he needed to reclaim, not enough information about how to be what he was, about what he needed to do, about anything.

Her quilt, and his, only smelt like the woods and the dampness of cold earth.

++

end

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I dick around on tumblr at [alyks](http://alyks.tumblr.com/).


End file.
